2023-10-22 03:55:00
“Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible and suddenly you will be doing the impossible.” The quote from Saint Francis of Assisi is more than pertinent regarding a structural debate that slipped into the middle of the electoral campaign.
The flatness of the political discussion is one of the characteristics of the electoral process that begins to find its zenith today.
In the midst of this collective hysteria marked by uncertainty about the immediate futureand the resulting economic paralysis, a strange topic emerged given its nature of deep, structural and foundational discussion: the reduction of the working day.
The extension of the legal working day in Argentina is governed by the provisions of the Law 11,544 passed in 1929. It establishes a maximum of 48 hours a week, that is, 8 hours a day including Saturdays.
The length of the legal working day in Argentina is 48 hours per week, and is governed by the provisions of Law 11,544 passed in 1929.
The ruling party decided to move forward with an initiative that proposes a gradual reduction in working hours until reaching the standards with which it is governed the International Labor Organization (ILO), which recommend a maximum of 40 hours per week.
There are six other bills that point in the same direction, and propose that the extension of the working day be between 36 and 40 hours per week.
Questions abound and answers are scarce. Is such an idea impossible in this context? Better to start with what is necessary Is it necessary to reduce the number of working hours stipulated by law? Then perhaps it is logical to reason about the possible. Are there recent experiences of reduction in working hours? Can the Argentine labor market withstand this debate in the current state of the situation?
More for less, the controversy
Without a doubt, the aspect that generates the most tension in relation to the idea of reducing the working day is that from the beginning It is assumed that the number of working hours will be less, but the salary will remain the same.
Strictly, it implies that Workers would receive higher compensation for each hour worked.
When reviewing the background behind the initiative, it is worth saying that reducing the working day is not a crazy silver idea.
Belgium, the United Kingdom, Scotland, Wales, Iceland and Spain have already incorporated the reduction of working hours, even going one step further and establishing a work week of only 4 days.
On the contrary, There is ample precedent in this regard in the world., especially in the old continent, and also in neighboring countries. This is the case of Chile, which just approved in April the reduction of the working day from 45 to 40 hours per week.
In Europe, a large group of countries has already incorporated the reduction of working hours, even going one step further and establishing a work week of only 4 days. In this sense, there is already legislation and implementation experience in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Scotland, Wales, Iceland and Spain.
The reasons, however, are dissimilar to the discussion in Argentina. On the European continent the debate revolves around the need to balance work with leisure, and the possibility of improving quality of life, especially after the damage to physical-emotional integrity caused by the pandemic. The ideal of “healthy and happy workers” is pursued.
In our country, however, what mobilizes the debate in a large part of the political arc is the romantic idea that in the long run companies will need to hire more workers to make up for missing work hours.
Taken to the extreme, it is a fallacious argument. It means believing that if the working day is reduced to just one hour, employment would increase eightfold. Unreal.
When the current law in Argentina was enacted in 1929, the world was different. The capital stock was much lower, the available technology was not current, the population was smaller, the production processes were very different, and the quality of life of the average worker was much lower.
However, it is worth saying that When the current law in Argentina was enacted in 1929, the world was different.. The capital stock was much lower, the available technology was not current, the population was smaller, the production processes were very different, and the quality of life of the average worker was much lower.
In that interwar world, the ILO achieved in the late 1920s that the international standard was reduced from 65 hours per week to 48, and by the mid-1930s it reduced it to 45 hours. Argentine legislation has never moved beyond 48 hours a week in almost 100 years.
Those who oppose the reduction of working hours in the current context point out that the debate should take place in a stabilized economy whose historical structural restrictions are resolved.
The staunchest opponents add that no sane businessman will incorporate more labor in a scenario of uncertainty like the current one, and that A mandatory reduction in the working day would only imply tensions in terms of the productive supplyincentive to disinvestment, and even paralysis in different sectors of the economy.
Productivity, that’s the question
The debate about reducing the working day raises a no less important issue: Is it possible to achieve the same amount of production in a shorter amount of time? Does it mean then that there was (or is there) an inefficient use of productive factors? Is it possible to generate a forced increase in productivity?
In simple terms, productivity is the relationship that exists between the quantity of final product obtained, and the quantity of productive factors used to obtain it.
If what is applied is a flat-out reduction in the working day and nothing else is assumed to change, what is proposed then is nothing more than a de facto increase in labor productivity.
In the case of work, if what is applied is a flat reduction in the working day and nothing else is assumed to change (namely: the quantity of final product, the number of workers, wages), What is proposed then is nothing more than a de facto increase in labor productivity.
In other words, workers will see the marginal remuneration for their labor increase, but in exchange They will have to find a way to be more efficient (do the same thing, but faster).
The first thing that stands out is the restriction imposed by the production processes themselves.
Workers would see their remuneration increase, but in exchange they would have to be more efficient (do the same thing, but faster).
It is possible that in many sectors there are idle efficiency marginsand that the reduction in working hours contributes to a direct improvement in productivity, and even in the ability of workers to access leisure.
But also It is more than likely that there are specific sectors in which the production process itself is the main obstacle. Without going too far with the imagination, a mass production line will probably encounter difficulties in product quality standards to “go faster” and reduce the work time of operators.
Naturally, Reforming the extension of working hours requires flexibility and time in order to allow the production matrix to adapt to the new way of using the labor factor.
None of the countries that made progress in this regard did so overnight and abruptly.
Politics, the key
The idea promoted by the Minister of Labor, Raquel “Kelly” Olmos, in the midst of the electoral heat, is that in the first step the reduction reaches 44 hours a week, to finally reach the international standard of 40 hours a week. The intention is to allow companies and the various negotiations of collective agreements to incorporate the guideline progressively, allowing the productive sector to adapt its processes gradually.
The pro-government representative Vanesa Siley, president of the “Labor Legislation Commission” of the Chamber of Deputies, where the initiative began to be discussed at the beginning of October, indicated that “productivity has been notably increased, a decrease in absenteeism, a decrease in work accidents, which results in lower costs.”
“The modernization of labor legislation is necessary, but it is necessary to measure the results, we cannot launch ourselves into imposing a 36-hour work week in an adverse context and for an increasingly smaller segment, because there is increasing labor informality” , said deputy Mónica Frade of Together for Change.
Improving productivity and well-being are laudable long-term objectives, but in Argentina the long term is tomorrow, Monday.
The industrialists, on the other hand, spoke out emphatically against it during the beginning of the legislative debate. “The debate does not include informal employment. We need to adapt to the Argentine reality, with the problems we have. If we reduce hours without any type of salary reduction, then do we rush people to work faster and increase labor conflict?” bellowed Julio Cordero, leader of the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA).
The truth is that the saga is just beginning. The intention of the ruling party is that, as with Profits and VAT, the discussion on the reduction of the working day reaches the chambers of both chambers before the end of the year.
The contrast with the data
The official photo of the labor market in Argentina has just been published by INDEC.
The data refer to the first half of the year and offer sufficient nuances to introduce the current labor situation into the structural debate about the extension of the working day.
It is true that in a scenario of unleashed inflation, real wages that are running behind the race with prices, and growing poverty, the unemployment figure is surprisingly low.
There are 14 million people that make up the economically active population (EAP). They are those with a job, or who without having one, actively seek one. Of that total, only 6.2% are unemployed (0.9 million).
Nevertheless, The data is far from meaning bonanza.
Of the total number of employed people (13.1 million), 74.2% work as “salaried employees” (9.7 million). And within the universe of employees, 1 in 3 is an informal workerthat is, without pension coverage or health and social security benefits.
But even more stark, it is an image rarely recorded in seven decades in Argentina: registered workers who cannot afford the basic basket. That is to say, A huge portion of the 6.1 million formal workers are poor.
Such is the background of the discussion on the reduction of working hours.
The question is, can a reform of this general style make any sustainable change to the current picture of the labor market?
In this sense there is a no minor contrast in the official data, and it is the one referring to the “underemployed”. The INDEC defines them as those “employed people who work less than 35 hours per week and are willing to work more hours.”
There are 4 out of every 10 workers in a dependent relationship in Argentina who, far from demanding a reduction in working hours, express the need to work more hours or declare they work more, in order to escape poverty.
Underemployment reaches 11.3% of employed people in the first half of 2023. Equals 1.5 million people working fewer hours than they would like and who express the need to work more, or what is the same: “they don’t make ends meet.”
At the same time, there is another portion of workers that INDEC classifies as “overemployed.” They are those who work “more than 45 hours a week. This is 28.4% of those employed. Equivalent to another 3.7 million people who work “overtime” to meet their needs.
The translation is simple. There are 4 out of every 10 workers in a dependent relationship in Argentina who, far from demanding a reduction in working hours, express the need to work more hours or declare they work more, in order to escape poverty.
Myopic politics, meanwhile, seeks to adopt a structural but extemporaneous policy. Both the forced improvement in productivity and the increase in worker well-being are laudable long-term objectives. The obstacle to pursuing them is that In Argentina, the long term is the urgency of inflationary and exchange uncertainty tomorrow, Monday..
- 4 out of 10
- The portion of “employed” people in Argentina who would like to work more hours, or who work “too much,” to be able to “make ends meet.”
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